I've played WoW off and on since Vanilla throughout college and I find myself incredibly bored with it in my recent attempt to get back into it. Most of my friends who did play quit and I have no desire to buy the new expansion when it comes out, as my WoW days are probably over. I've read about Rift some and seem to get the impression it is similar to how WoW originally was, with better graphics, and that a majority of old school WoW players have migrated to Rift.

Does anyone have an opinion of the game or if it would be worth buying? I've tried SWTOR and wasn't that excited about it, so I want a new game to take up my free time!

I really like WoW and played for many years, I just think it's on the decline and dont enjoy it nearly as much as I used to, so I'd like something new. I imagine it is very similar to WoW since many MMOs are, but are there any noticeable changes/differences in Rift than WoW?

Rift was a whole lot of meh imho. It just didn't feel right, the world was pretty and shiny, but the content just never seemed to suck me in, wasn't interested in the lore and the way you build your characters was kinda odd, you could have basically one character and 4 templates to fit any need. I am enjoying SWTOR at the moment. I played Rift in alpha/beta and release and was done in about 4 months, just didn't capture my attention.

I played since head start, it had a lot of the same feel as wow on some things but other things were just leaps and bounds above wow, i.e. the class system. The game was very polished at launch, I played for a good 6 months till I got married but I have friends that still play and the7 love it. The end game was great, they released new content at least every 1-2 months, and pvp while like all mmo's was sometimes unblalanced it was still very fun.

I think its selling for only $19.99 which includes of course the first month free. Your probably paying $15 a month for wow anyways so for $5 you can try a new game.

Some of the landscapes are just sunningly beautiful, though I have a good video card. I say go for it, you will enjoy it.

I just downloaded the lite version for free and played around for an hour or two. It seems similar to how WoW plays but you can tell the differences between them. It does seem choppier and less fluid than WoW, but that might be because it is the lite version? So far it doesn't seem to be enough for me to make the switch, even if WoW has become stale. I may try up until the level cap before making a final decision....

I realize I wont be able to test any of the end game content without buying but meh. Might just not do much until Diablo 3 finally comes out lol